Long-Term Prospects: Mitigation of Supernova and Gamma-Ray Burst Threat to Intelligent Beings

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for advanced civilizations to develop astroengineering solutions, like electromagnetic shielding, to mitigate catastrophic cosmic explosion threats such as supernovae and gamma-ray bursts.

Contribution

It proposes feasible astroengineering strategies for threat mitigation and discusses their detectability, expanding the scope of SETI and planetary defense research.

Findings

Shielding swarms could reduce radiation impact from cosmic explosions

Astroengineering solutions are theoretically feasible within advanced civilizations

Detectable signatures of such mitigation efforts could be observed from afar

Abstract

We consider global catastrophic risks due to cosmic explosions (supernovae, magnetars and gamma-ray bursts) and possible mitigation strategies by humans and other hypothetical intelligent beings. While by their very nature these events are so huge to daunt conventional thinking on mitigation and response, we wish to argue that advanced technological civilizations would be able to develop efficient responses in the domain of astroengineering within their home planetary systems. In particular, we suggest that construction of shielding swarms of small objects/particles confined by electromagnetic fields could be one way of mitigating the risk of cosmic explosions and corresponding ionizing radiation surges. Such feats of astroengineering could, in principle, be detectable from afar by advanced Dysonian SETI searches.